Reflections on life from an older, working mother with two boys. My blog is inspired by my niece's blog called "Life of a Domestic Goddess." At the end of the day at our house, if no one has been to the emergency room, Childrens' Services has not called, my sweater wasn't on inside out at work, and we have eaten something other than poptarts and donuts for at least one meal, I call it good!

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Pat myself on the back and rambles

I just finished a big work project. Whew.

I've been sick, way behind on stuff at work, making Dave's life miserable (although, at least some of it he deserves) and trying to just get through the day. Anyway, one project finished and out of the door, well out the figurative email door.

Maybe I can be more patient with my dear children this week. Alex is the difficult one these days. He continues to get up in the middle of the night almost every night. I've been ignoring it. This may be why it is getting worse--he is trying so hard to get my attention. Behaviorists tell me to expect the behavior to get worse before it gets better. Friday night the dear boy, all 55 or 60 lbs. of him at most at about a cup of peanut butter, straight out of the jar. He had carried three brand new 18 oz jars of peanut butter upstairs, opened just one, and eaten half the jar. I figured it was about 1500 calories of pure peanut butter. Needless to say, he didn't want breakfast. But he ate lunch and dinner. Maybe I'm not feeding him enough. Although, Thursday evening, Dave was gone, I baked a batch of pre-packaged tollhouse cookies. The kind that comes in the dairy case, break apart, and bake. It made 12 big cookies. I had two. The boys finished the rest of them before Dave came home that night. They also ate dinner. Even I won't feed my children chocolate chip cookies for dinner. What will it be like when they are teenagers? I suppose a half a jar of peanut butter will be nothing! Let's just hope he keeps it in the kitchen. Earlier in the week I came downstairs and found two OLD containers of Redi Whip on the counter, and a brand new container of ready made frosting open with a spoon in it. At least he didn't finish half the frosting or take it upstairs. And he didn’t get sick from the expired Redi Whip. I gotta clean out the fridge if he is going to become my night time fridge raider.

Alex took his quarterly reading test last week. No progress. I just want to tell the teachers to quit testing him. Or, quit believing the tests! Can't they tell he is learning without a standardized test? I can. I read with him almost every day, and he is reading more and more fluently. Why do they have to have a test prove it? Is it no child left behind? Are they upset because Alex is ruining the school's numbers? Here they have this bi-racial kid that makes no progress on the standardized tests. Anyway, they tested him a second time and he showed a big jump. I expect if they tested him a third time it would be lower than the first. He is daydreaming all day at school, telling the teachers "no" when they ask him to do something, distracting other kids, etc. etc. I'd imagine he is quite a handful. The Dr. has adjusted his ADHD medication; the Psychologist still needs one more appointment to make a diagnosis, but has already indicated we will have a "treatment" phase with Alex. All I know is that I’m exhausted trying to keep up with him, help the teachers, deal with the teachers, and do my work. But one big project down, I feel better already! Also, since Sarah's post about knowing your child's "currency" I've been thinking about Alex. He loves to play with his friend Owen, and he loves Kids Friday Night Book Club. I told him and his teachers that I want him to stop daydreaming in class and stop saying "no" when he is asked to do work. They are to report to me daily. (One teacher is reporting, one is not.) I've had a hard time deciding what will motivate him. I've decided to try book club. So, this week he needs to get positive reports from teachers 3 of 5 days or he can't go to book club. I'll let you know. Sounds harsh, but I can't think of anything he really cares about. Anyway, at the moment, my spectrum child is my easy one.

As I type this he has been wandering around, singing, talking to himself, etc. So funny. Singing “Alleluia, alleluia” and talkiing about a babysitter he has not seen in about two years. He actually has a very nice singing voice when he thinks I’m not paying attention. I think much of his inspiration comes from the Disney channel. Now it is “use yer ‘magination” over and over? Anyone know the reference? Is it High School Musical? Okay, now the song is "How do we know you, how do we love you?"

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

I completely relate to this post. I work full-time myself, although we recently downshifted my career so that there is some hope that I will be around more for the kids (and have more of myself left by the time I reach the garage at night). Sometimes, I just gave at the office. So I know just what you mean about hoping to have more patience with the kids now that at least one project is off your desk.

As for the waking at night, my autistic boy always has woken most nights. He puts himself back to sleep, most of the time, but he wakes and sings, plays, pees, lined up toys, etc. He also alternates between eating like a HORSE and not eating. He can eat 5 pieces of a large pizza, or live on air for two days. I am only glad that it hasn't occurred to him to take peanut butter to his room. It does make meal planning a chore: I don't know whether I'm feeding the army or just my skinny aunt Gertrude.